


Shinra Family Strifes

by Leonawriter



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Gen, illegitimate kids, which is both Lazard and Cloud here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 21:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13198809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: If it hadn't been for Cloud's induction photo, if it hadn't been for the fact that his file had been reviewed by the Director of SOLDIER, Lazard Deusericus himself, Cloud would have had a much higher chance of getting in to SOLDIER.But those two things had ensured that he never would.





	Shinra Family Strifes

Lazard looked at the applicant's profile on his computer screen, the name, face, and date of birth looking back at him in an almost accusing way, and sighed, his hand going up to his forehead in order to - ineffectually, given what he was seeing, what he would doubtless have to deal with from here on - hold back a headache.

 _Cloud Strife,_ the file read.  _Born, Nibelheim. 19. 08. 1986._

Cloud's picture, taken during the induction that everyone had to the army and SOLDIER, showed him to be a scrawny boy with wide blue eyes, likely already affected by having lived so close to a mako reactor, but dull enough compared to anyone actually enhanced that it was clear that the colour was  _naturally_ blue, rather than those who may have used to have brown eyes, or green, and it had changed during the process.

Sephiroth was the odd one out, in that, but Lazard just like everyone else had learned not to question the reasoning behind the existence of their strongest, or at least leave the curiosity to safer avenues.

The reason Lazard had sighed, however, was that he was getting a bad feeling of familiarity with the situation here that he did not like.

The boy had blond hair, that spiked up in ways that didn't seem forced yet also suggested that if they were forced  _down_ then they would take on a form he was altogether too used to seeing in the mirror. The way the kid looked into the camera, the way the notes spoke of his drive and promise, were things that he had seen in himself, which had enabled him to reach the position of Director of SOLDIER, but... also of Rufus, given that, dislike it though he might, they shared that sense of ambition.

Ambition that he could all too easily see in this kid, who said that he came from a backwater village ( _Nibelheim_ , Lazard's treacherous mind informed him,  _is where the President spent some time, just long enough ago that it would fit)_ and who had pushed himself to get all the way to Midgar, who aimed to be a SOLDIER of the same calibre as  _Sephiroth_ , if he was to be believed.

Lazard leaned back in his chair, listening to the ticking of the clock. 

 _I could be wrong,_ he told himself.  _No father is listed, but it could be a purely coincidental similarity._

The awful thing was, he would believe that as soon as someone told him that Sephiroth was  _not_ Professor Hojo's own son - he had spent too long studying the faces of the President and his son in order to see the family resemblance, too long, long enough to find it easy to see it in another when he'd seen  _that_ boy glare at him when he passed through the slums just long enough to notice - to escape such clear markings.

Family was something he knew. In a sense, it was something he specialised in. Even SOLDIER itself could be considered a form of family in and of itself, with the way that the SOLDIERs were set apart from the rest of humanity.

 _It doesn't have to be my call,_ he reasoned, which was true. Usually the Director didn't make decisions for which cadets were brought into the SOLDIER program, no matter how promising. But sometimes, every so often, he would find himself glancing over their names and faces-

 _Gods,_ he sighed, not for the first or last time as he raised his eyes again,  _I can't do it._

To let Strife into SOLDIER would mean that he would inevitably rise up the ranks, and to rise even to the position of Second would bring attention down on him that might not be at all avoidable. 

Not everyone was as accepting of the fact that President Shinra had a bad habit of fathering bastards. He had kept his own heritage a closely guarded secret, with how the ones who did think that they had discovered something almost invariably would send him looks of scorn, pity, and distaste as soon as they thought he wouldn't be aware.

Strife... did not have the armour against such correct assumptions that Lazard had ever had. 

The boy would probably do well enough in SOLDIER. His file noted that he had shown some small proficiency with firearms, and a greater ability with bladed weapons, even the heavier swords that some SOLDIERs such as Hewley favoured, even if Hewley himself hardly even used his. If he had come from Nibelheim, then he would probably adapt well enough to the mako treatments, as well, so there was little fear of poisoning or addiction as long as they took the same care as with all of the other candidates.

As his fingers hovered over his keyboard, however, he typed out a simple  _declined._ Closed down the rest of the files he'd been looking over. Opened up his mail, and sent off a quick message to Veld to keep an eye on the situation without informing the man of all of the details. Lazard was sure the Turk had already figured  _him_   _and Rufus_ out already, if not the other, so this... would not come as too much of a surprise, and the man would be able to fill in the implications easily enough.

Life under Heidegger was not a fate he would willingly give to anyone, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and the army in this instance could be seen as the lesser of two evils - as long as Cloud survived wherever Heidegger sent him, a thing that Lazard would have no control over the moment the boy was admitted to the other department full time.

 _Still,_ he told himself,  _better that, than the alternative. The last thing we need is an unwitting Shinra stirring things up among the ranks._

 _Or,_ he admitted,  _for the poor boy to gain that sense of anger and bitterness against the President and the company, that all of us with his blood seem to share. The least I can do is let him hold onto those dreams of his for just a little longer._

Innocence was, after all, a precious commodity around Shinra, in precious little supply. As Lazard knew all too well. It wouldn't last - it never did - but he did what little he could for his SOLDIERs. This wasn't really too much different.

What was it he'd told Zack about dreams, and not too long ago, even -  _unattainable ones are the best kind._ That was it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd seen this theory a few times now, and the more I thought on it, the more fascinated by it I became. And then just earlier, this little glimpse came into my head, and wouldn't leave me alone.
> 
> I can imagine canon going exactly as it did, but when Lazard finds Zack in Banora and sees the comatose Cloud, it's easy to see him asking Zack to look after the kid before he fades away for good, still not admitting why, but with his own present-but-weak family ties and Angeal's sense of honour, he can't not.


End file.
